Voter Location Slip: Electoral Commission rolls out response to voter location complaints

The Electoral Commission has rolled out a plan to get voters to identify their polling stations during the 2021 general election. It will issue Voter Location Slips (VLS) to voters at parish/wards throughout the country for the next 10 days (from 3^rd to 12^th January).

This program is a response by Byabakama’s team to issues having been raised regarding the difficulty in locating polling stations in previous elections. The VLS bears the particulars of the voter; name, photograph, date of birth and location: district, constituency, sub-county, parish and polling station.

The VLS is to be used along with a Biometric Voter Verification machine which will read the barcode on the slip. The BVV will be deployed at all polling stations throughout the country.

The VLS is free of charge and can only be picked by the voter from a parish/ward supervisor; this being an employee of the Commission. The same urges voters to pick their slips and secure them in a manner that does not tamper with the barcode.

Only those whose names appear on the polling day register will be issued with a slip. The Voters’ Register remains the primary document for polling and thus, one does not necessarily need a VLS to vote.